Every (Dis)abled Must Converge: Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Flannery O'Connor, and the Body of Christ

​It is a well-known fact that Flannery O’Connor suffered from lupus at a time when the disease was poorly understood and treatments were new. Due to her lupus and a lack of effective treatment, her life was severely constrained before her untimely death at thirty-nine. It is also well-known that she was a deeply devout Roman Catholic to the point that it deeply influenced every aspect of her work. It is odd, then, that engagement with O’Connor by disability scholars often leave aside O’Connor’s theology. One such author who does so, is Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. This is to Garland-Thomson’s detriment, because the theological vision with which O’Connor invites us to see people with disabilities would greatly bolster Garland-Thomson’s argument for the conservation of disability.

The problem with Garland-Thomson’s project is that she accepts the basic premise of those who would want to do away with people with disabilities. This premise is that people with disabilities need to justify their existence by demonstrating that there is some benefit fromliving with a disability. Moreover, it is a utilitarian form of thinking that claims that these benefits must outweigh the suffering that comes with disability. Garland-Thomson strives to show that there are benefits to disability that outweigh the attendant suffering. Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, she instrumentalizes people with disability, which makes their value contingent on the goods that can be generated by the disability either by the disabled themselves or the other people who engage with them. Such contingency fails to fully safe-guard people with disabilities who cannot generate any good out of their disability nor have anyone in their lives who can use their disabilities to generate meaning.

In this paper, I will argue that the theology in O’Connor’s writings provides a solution to the problem at the heart of Garland-Thomson’s argument. It will proceed in four steps. First, I will present an overview of Garland-Thomson’s argument for conserving disability. Second, I will show how this argument does not fully safeguard against the eugenic logic that Garland-Thomson tries to refute. Third, I will give a reading of O’Connor that emphasizes the theologyin her work and show how that theology is a better starting point for conserving disability. Finally, I will conclude by showing how Garland-Thomson’s project can rest on O’Connor’s theological foundation.